


Throw Your Fist Like a Pizza Dough

by RiaTheDreamer



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Carolina learns to relax, Friendship, Gen, RvB Fluff Week, takes place on the moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 09:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14161347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaTheDreamer/pseuds/RiaTheDreamer
Summary: Carolina’s eyelid keeps twitching.In order to fix the problem, she goes to Grif.





	Throw Your Fist Like a Pizza Dough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hinn_Raven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/gifts), [Prim_the_Amazing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/gifts), [foxtrot77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxtrot77/gifts).



It begins like this.

The three of them are sitting in the kitchen – Carolina and Wash and Tucker. Carolina has a mug in her hand, Wash has stubbles on his chin and Tucker has an annoying grin on his face.

“C’mon,” he says, shoving his elbow into Wash’ side. “The only way we’d ever get _the_ Carolina to relax is by making it a competition.”

Carolina’s eyes gleam.

Tucker smirks.

Wash sighs deeply. “Oh no,” he says and begins to stroke what will once become a fully-grown, terrifying yet strangely magnificent beard.

Ignoring her fellow Freelancer, Carolina focuses on Tucker instead and leans over the table so she can stare his smirk down. “Alright, name the rules and place. Are we talking about beating Grif’s napping record?”

“Hey, none of us could beat that one without slipping into a coma.”

She narrows her eyes. “Do you want to see me try?”

Then Wash lets go of his chin to drag Carolina back to her seat. “How about we focus on something that can’t accidently develop into a fatal situation?” he suggests but he doesn’t sound hopeful.

Carolina shakes her head. “It’s only 6 days, Wash. We’ve already beaten that before.”

“There’s a difference between a nap and a medically induced coma.”

“Then how do we measure this?” she asks, but in reality she is asking how to win, and they all know it.

At least this understanding of bad habits and childhood trauma and flawed character traits makes Tucker capable of suggesting, “You can start with getting rid of the _thing_.”

But unsaid understandings only last for so long.

“The _thing_?” Carolina asks.

Tucker nods. “The eye thing.”

“Which eye thing?” Wash asks, frowning, and he turns his head just in time to catch the sight of Carolina’s left eyelid twitching involuntary. “Oh. That eye thing.”

“I do not have-“ Carolina says, and then she blinks once, then twice, until the left eye is calm and the right eye starts acting up. “Alright. I can fix this.”

“One week with no stress-induced eye spasms. It’ll make us all sleep easier – because you look kinda scary like that. Like you want to punch me in the face.”

Carolina doesn’t say if that is in fact the truth, but she does hold out a hand for him to shake. “Deal.”

* * *

Carolina knows when to admit her weaknesses. She isn’t a fan of it, and it’s best to do it briefly in the most productive manner – like ripping off a bandaid. It’s become easier through the years.

Maybe it’s easier now because she is facing Grif who doesn’t care about her pride or façade or lack of such.

He doesn’t care. Period.

And that’s why he is perfect.

She finds Grif in the middle of the island, lying in the middle of nowhere as if he’s been run over. But he hasn’t, and he is breathing easily while he watches the clouds pass. Maybe he is lying there because the grass is soft and the sky is blue, or maybe just because Grif in general prefers lying down over standing up.

Maybe, at the end of this, she’ll know why.

He agrees to her arrangement, after more than a few confused frowns, then plenty of raised eyebrows and curious questions, but eventually he shrugs and that seals the deal.

She has a teacher now. The best one for the job, as strange as the words seem in her mouth. So strange that she in fact doesn’t speak them out loud.

But they both know it’s the truth.

She’s ready to learn, and so she can’t hide her disappointment when Grif just lies back down on the grass, looking at the sky and the clouds passing by.

When she asks him when they’ll begin her training, he tsks at her.

“When you’re slacker, you don’t ask when things start. If you really have to waste your breath, you ask when things _end_ , so you can go back to doing nothing.”

Carolina blinks and feels the slightest spasm in her eyelid. “Oh.”

When Grif looks up at her, this strange disappointment can still be seen in his mismatched eyes. “Right. Let’s try again.”

She sits down next to him, crossing her legs and looking up at the sun until she has to squint. “I have a question.”

“Didn’t I just tell you-“

“When are we done?” she cuts him off, and he returns her small smile, nodding in satisfaction.

* * *

 The sounds of the melody can be heard throughout the base, so Carolina doesn’t need Simmons’ words of complaints and guiding finger in order to know which direction to find Grif.

She goes down to the basement, and she pauses at the last step, watching Grif who is sitting on the corner of the darkened room, on a worn beanbag with an even older ukulele in his hands.

“Sounds good.”

“Thanks.” He mutes the strings by putting a hand on top of them. “I wasn’t sure if I’d see you today.”

Carolina has met plenty of disbelief so far, mixed with encouragement. “I don’t quit easily,” she says, hands on her hips and a knowing smirk on her lips.

But he just clutches his instrument tighter. “Why are you here?” he asks her with a low voice.

“To learn.”

“No shit. I mean, why are you here _now_?”

She spends a second to consider her answer, and then she tells him the truth. “It’s 1pm. You told me to meet you-“

“You disappoint me, Carolina.” There’s a soft tone to his words, almost like a friendly chuckle, and it doesn’t remind her of her father’s piercing glare and disappointed sigh – at least not for longer than a second. “No real slacker would show up on time.”

Carolina looks at him, feeling relieved for some reason. “I see.”

“So leave.” He flails his hand dramatically towards the exit. “I don’t want to see you right now,” he tells her as he bows over the ukulele, giving it a few strums.

She goes to the stairs, hesitating. “Should I just return in ten minutes or…?”

“You suck at this,” he tells her and plucks the strings again.

* * *

“Okay, this is getting weird.”

They’re in a boat, and Carolina isn’t quite sure how they became the owners of a boat, but she won’t complain. It’s small and wooden and it looks like something out of an old drawing, especially with the calm water around them and the blue sky above them.

Even from here, she can see the others running around on the island. Something explodes, leaving a cloud of dust and a soldier dressed in red emerges from it. She tells herself not to worry.

Grif doesn’t even react to the explosion behind them. Instead he looks at the ripples in the water, frowning before throwing out his line again.

“I thought you said it was normal that the fish didn’t bite,” Carolina says, and she is willing to admit that she knows nothing about fishing.

“Not that.” Grif leans back, just enough to look relaxed and yet not enough to fall overboard. He’s not looking at the water anymore, but instead he’s facing her, frowning. “It’s weird that you’re still doing this.”

“What?”

“ _This_ ,” he says. “Whatever it is. I’m kinda expecting you to push me in the water and scream April fool.”

“It’s June.”

Grif throws up an arm, almost dropping the rob by accident. “Exactly! It’s… _weird_.” He licks his lips, as if tasting the word, or perhaps just eating the last Oreo crumbs that may still be in his mouth. “You don’t enjoy this,” he accuses her, pointing the rod at her.

“I don’t _hate_ this,” she says, and it’s easy to say because it’s the truth. It’s not… infuriating, to sit out here, in the middle of the sea, beneath the sun, doing nothing, while so much else, literally anything else than doing nothing, could be done.

Grif squints and it’s not because of the sun. “You’re creeping me out.”

Carolina looks at the water and doesn’t see any fish. This fishing trip hasn’t been successful so far.

But at least the weather is nice.

“Maybe I want to enjoy it,” she says.

“That’s… reasonable.” Grif tilts his head. “Didn’t see that coming, but sure.”

Her finger creates ripples when she reaches down to touch the surface of the water. “The others said I can’t do this. _Relax_. I’m going to prove them wrong. I’m going to win.”

“Slackers don’t care about winning,” Grif tells her.

The line hasn’t moved at all. She wonders if there’s anything attached to the hook. Grif can’t remember if he actually brought bait.

“What do you care about?” Carolina asks him.

Grif pauses and rubs a red mark on his wrist. He’s staring at the water. “Fishing,” he says.

* * *

“Where did you learn to play?”

“Back home.” He plucks the strings once, twice, thrice, in a melody she recognizes. “Hawaii. You’d be surprised how many tourists that’d give their spare change to a fat boy in a stupid costume playing a ukulele.” His eyes light up for a moment, due to a new idea rather than suppressed childhood memories. “We should start a band – be Sarge’s annoying loud neighbors. Do you play?”

“No.” And Carolina smiles, closing in on him, as he prepares herself to perform in order to prove her incoming point, “But I can sing.”

And so she does. She takes a second to consider. She has a few tattered memories of her mother singing her to sleep with a gentle yet awkward tone, but the pop song Donut has played over and over in the base is stuck inside her head – something about nails all polished and rules to be demolished and a raised fist that knows where to hit – so when she opens her mouth, the lyrics occur to her naturally.

Grif listens very closely, with eyes wide open and horrified.

Carolina ends her song by owning the stage and smacking her lips. “I told you – I _can_ sing. So about that band?”

“Actually,” Grif says. The ukulele hangs limply from his hand. “Let’s save the… _singing_ for another day.”

“Oh.” She tilts her head. “What are we spending the day on then?”

“Philosophy. I got a lot of deep thoughts in my head right now. You know. If you _can_ do something, that doesn’t mean you _should_ do it.”

* * *

“Why are we doing this?” Carolina asks, with her hands buried into the dough. It clings to her fingers. She grimaces.

Grif handles his dough with ease, and as he finishes kneading it, he flings it upwards while it slowly takes shape of a circle.

“’cause I want pizza,” he replies, throwing and catching the pale dough. “And so we can celebrate our heritage and all that shit-“

She remembers Grif talking about Hawaii. He doesn’t talk much about his childhood, and neither does she, but he brings up the island time to time.

So this activity confuses her. “…You’re Italian?”

“I’m Hawaiian. So.” He nods towards the old glass of cut pineapple on the counter. “Hawaiian pizza.”

She throws her dough and it sticks to the ceiling.

* * *

“I’m winning this,” she informs Wash and Tucker the next day when they all gather in the kitchen to grab their first dose of coffee. It’s been three days since the last time her eye acted up. Four to go.

“Please,” Tucker snorts in disbelief and steals the last drops from the coffee pot. “You can’t be the most relaxed person on this team. That’s like… Grif being the best fighter.”

Carolina narrows her eyes.

“Oh no,” Wash sighs. He scratches his chin again. The stubbles are longer now.

* * *

“Ow. Ow. _Owww_.”

Grif yelps again when her fist connects with his forearm, and the grimace on his face is pitiful enough to make Carolina feel bad.

She lowers her fist, trying to figure out _how_ to go softer on him in the next round. She doesn’t know how, because she thought she was already being soft. “You have to block the punch,” she says, because they have to start at the bottom and work their way up from there. This is a useful advice, and she wishes that he could actually follow it.

“I can’t block _your_ punches,” he mutters while rubbing the sore spot. “They go through walls.”

“You need to improve your posture. Hold your arm like this.”

She shows him how to stand, again and again, and yet his posture falters every time her fist comes close enough.

“Why are we doing this again?” Grif asks him while he pushes himself up from the ground with loud groans of discomfort. He falls flat on his face twice before he manages to stand again.

“Because you don’t want Tucker to beat your ass.”

He frowns, wiping some dust off his forehead and wincing when he touches a swelling bruise. “Uhm, why am I going to fight Tucker? Wait – did he say something about Kai’s ass again-“

The frown only grows bigger when she tells him what he is participating in.

* * *

“Are you mad at me?” she asks him the next day.

They’re lying on the grass again as Grif is teaching her how to appreciate gravity. The grass brushes against her neck, and she is staring at a sky in the familiar shade of blue.

“Nah,” Grif says. “Slackers don’t go through the extra effort to be mad. We do whine, though. Look at this bruise you gave me!”

She looks at the swelling, and they both know that he’s suffered worse. “Impressive,” she says, nodding towards the dark bruise. “Blue doesn’t suit you.”

“Yeah…” Grif places his hands behind his head. “Seems like the world won’t stop punching me.”

Carolina looks at the cobalt-colored sky. The pang of pain hits her chest for a second, but she manages to push away the grief, distracted when she feels her eyelid twitch. She curses and slams her fist against the grass.

* * *

“Ow,” Grif says.

Carolina freezes, arm in the air. “I haven’t hit you yet.”

Grif crosses his arms – not in the way she’s taught him but just to look defensive and defiant. “I’m saying it in advance since you have a habit of knocking the fucking air out of my lungs.”

It’s hard not to understand why he’s so reluctant, with the bruises decorating his arms and legs like circus dots. There’s even a small scratch on his cheekbone, but that’s only because he made the mistake of waking her up in the middle of another haunting nightmare, and she’d lashed out due to pure instincts.

Maybe it’s time to change things.

“Try to hit me,” she says.

Grif asks her if she’s being serious and she nods. He asks her again, and she tells him to hit her already.

He follows orders, surprisingly. He throws a punch. Unfortunately for him, his fist connects with the chest plate with a loud _crack_ that is not due to the metal breaking.

“ _Owwww_ ,” he says again, cradling his hand to his chest, pouting.

* * *

“I don’t see the purpose in this,” she admits, and she doesn’t try to hide her displeased expression.

Grif sighs loudly. “What have I taught you?”

“We don’t need a purpose.” The words come out automatically, voice monotone, after having heard the statement so many times. She feels like it should lift some weight off her shoulders, liberate her in some way, but it just feels like a script.

Gris seems pleased, though, and gives her a nod. “Exactly,” he says. “So are you helping me or not?”

She still wishes they had a reason for filling the sink with plates.

But maybe the true reason is just to see Simmons shake with fury and annoyance at the sight.

* * *

“You have a lot of potential,” she tells him, offering him a hand and pulling him from the ground.

“I get it,” he says through wheezing breaths. “I’m fat. There’s _a lot_ of me to work with.”

He is standing again, and she lets go of his hand. “That’s not what I meant,” she says, watching for any trace of hurt in his expression.

But Grif is very good at not showing emotions.

“Why does it matter?” he asks her. “It’s not like we’re going to have to fight again.”

He rubs his wrist with small, quick motions, and stares as her, as if waiting for her to challenge his statement.

* * *

“I’m pretty sure the others think we’ve gone mad,” Carolina says, and she doesn’t even blame the rest of their team. They are, after all, driving around in circles in full speed. It’s hard to go anywhere specific when you’re stuck in an island and the Warthog isn’t waterproof (yet).

“Haven’t we?” Grif asks her, grinning.

They are going fast enough to make her hair fly behind her in long, red waves. Grif is behind the wheel, using only one hand, and Carolina finds herself relaxing in her seat.

“It’s refreshing not to have a backseat driver.”

“I could yell at you for not driving fast enough.”

He raises a dark eyebrow in surprise, removing his eyes from the road to stare at her. “You enjoy this?” he asks, like he’s never heard that sentence being said out loud before – and that’s probably the case. Carolina knows that Simmons prefers to read the traffic rules whenever they land on a planet.

“I like the adrenalin,” she says, and it’s the truth. The wind in her hair makes it easier to _not_ think, makes it easier close her eyes and just _chill_ , as Grif puts it.

Grif adds pressure on the power pedal and drums his fingers against the wheel. “Yeah…” he says, eyes distant and not because he’s looking for upcoming obstacles on the road. “I can almost forget how I’m going to die in two days.”

* * *

“I give up.”

Grif says those words and lets his head fall against the dirt. Lying still like this, you can almost believe him dead – but Carolina has seen too many dead bodies to be fooled.

“No,” she says, hovering above him, but she can’t even bring herself to be mad. Not when Grif doesn’t have a reason to participate in this. But then again – she’s been told they don’t need a reason any longer. “I know you can fight, Dexter Grif. I’ve seen it.”

Grif opens his eyes and ruins his whole plan about playing dead. “Yeah, against batshit crazy evil space pirates who were trying to kill me. Not a fist-fight with a cocky asshole who can’t shut up.”

“I believe in you,” she says, because that’s what she’s forced herself to do. During Chorus, even before that. Whenever she couldn’t watch the assholes, the only thing to do is to believe in them to handle themselves until she’s able to check up on them and perform CPR if necessary.

But they always survive.

…Most of them.

“So what? If we all clap loud enough, I’m gonna spawn wings and fly? Belief doesn’t do shit.” He pushes himself up with his palm into a sitting position where he stares at the ground and rubs his wrist again, unconsciously, using his nail this time. “Why do you even care? Didn’t you have your own bet to win before you dragged me into a fight club?”

“I’m doing just fine,” she says, because she is. It’s been five days since the last time she noticed the twitch. “Two more days and I’ve won.”

Grif stares up at her. “Two more days- what?”

“The bet was to last one week without an eye-twitch. I’m in full control of this – I can do this.”

He tilts his head, his frown growing bigger by the second. “You mean the thing your eye is doing right now?”

“ _What_?”

They’ve abandoned the armor next to the training site (which is just the patch of grass where Carolina suddenly declares they’ll start their sparring match and then Grif will groan loudly before she’s even thrown a punch) because the armor slows Grif even more down. It’s easier when he just has his own weight to deal with.

But now she lunges for her helmet, staring into the visor to see her reflection.

The sight of the eyelid twitching is enough horror to make the other eye act up as well.

“How many times have I done that?” she demands to know and throws the helmet to the ground. Five days has just turned zero. But it’s okay. They have all the time now. They’re retired. It’s… weird. Actually.

Grif shrugs. “Uhm, like, every day? You probably don’t feel it. Just… your body being weird, I guess. Coping. All that sort of fancy words from the doctor.”

Carolina looks at him.

Grif doesn’t look at her.

But she is staring at him, as he sits there on the ground, bruises growing on his shins and forearms, and he rubs his already red wrist over and over.

And it occurs to her, suddenly, that they’ve all picked up habits after the war – small and seemingly unimportant, just the minor occurrences here and there. Tucker trailing off and complaining about headaches, Simmons cleaning smudges from spotless surfaces, Caboose going quiet and holding Freckles a bit too tightly, Donut plucking his brows too many times a day, Sarge yelling at inanimate objects, Lopez fixing things that aren’t broken, Wash reaching back to rest his fingers on his implants.

“But you can’t just get rid of it like that,” Grif says. “Making pizza. _Pfft_.”

“Then how do I get rid of it?” she asks him.

Grif stops touching his wrist. He looks up at her. “I dunno. By getting better?”

“How do I do that?”

“Hell if I know.” He stands up and brushes the dust off his knees, lowering his glare. “But not by making fucking bets about it.”

* * *

Carolina goes inside the base. Partly because she still needs to find Grif, and partly because Tucker is standing right outside, flexing his muscles, and she is growing tired of that sight really quickly.

“Where’s Grif?” she asks Simmons who is standing in the kitchen, loudly wondering _how_ the sink gets filled with plates that quickly.

“Hiding,” Simmons answers her while wiping a bowl dry with more force than necessary. “He doesn’t want to get beat up by Tucker.”

She’s expected as much, since Grif didn’t show up to meet her today.

“I see.”

Simmons turns to face her, frowning. “He’s going to disappoint Sarge. He’s already set up the camera to film the event and everything.”

That explains the amount of wires lying outside. Donut had tripped over one earlier and yelled when he broke a nail. “I’ll try to find him,” she says. There is less than half an hour before the match is supposed to start.

Simmons snorts and uses the dishcloth on the counter, trying to wipe it clean. “Good luck. He could be everywhere on the island.” When she is in the doorway, he continues, “Be careful when going past the cave. I’m pretty sure there’s a rabid skunk living in there. The _smell_ …”

* * *

“Hey.”

Grif is sleeping in the corner, curled up on the ground, and he first opens his eyes when she nudges his leg with her foot.

He sits up too quickly and slams the back of his head against the cave wall. “Shit. Ow.” The thud seems to echo in the cave. He reaches up to rub the sore spot, glaring at her. She senses he’s not in a good mood. “Come to drag me to my doom?”

She shakes her head. He seems surprised.

She smiles.

“Nope. I was thinking we could be spending the day on something more… relaxing.”

* * *

The boat tilts just slightly when she leans over the edge to watch her reflection in the water.

Grif is sitting in the other end of the boat, holding on to his fishing rod. He doesn’t look at the water, though. Maybe he’s given up the hope about catching anything. Or maybe he just wants to stare at Carolina right now. “So… this is a surprise.”

Carolina straightens her back to sit up straight, returning his stare. She shrugs. “Tucker didn’t need an extra ego boost anyway.”

While Grif obviously doesn’t disagree with that reasoning, he still squints in suspicion. The fear for the unexpected is still there. For her to lie or push him in the water, or Tucker appearing like a shark to drag him into the waves when he least expects it.

“But what about winning?” he asks her.

Carolina knows the blurred, blue reflection didn’t lie. She can feel her eyelid twitch, just for some seconds, and then she leans her head back, closing her eyes so she can look up and feel the sun’s heat against her face. It feels nice, and the tension in her shoulders disappear, slowly.

“Slackers don’t care about winning,” Carolina reminds him. “We fish instead.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, I’ve been so busy this week, but I finally got this done. I kid you not, 80 percent of this has been written after midnight, and past-midnight-Ria is a very strange writer, so I apologize if the writing get messy at times and descriptions get… weird. I discovered the sentence about Wash’ beard – “fully-grown, terrifying yet strangely magnificent beard” – a morning after writing ‘till 4am, and I loved it too much so I didn’t delete it.
> 
> This fic is actually three prompts crammed into one fic.
> 
> foxtrot77777 prompted: “Grif and Carolina bonding time :) playing music, eating a ton of junk food, meditating.... whatever you think!”
> 
> primtheamazing prompted: “Grif teaches Carolina to be the Best At Laziness.”
> 
> secretlystephaniebrown prompted: “Carolina decides that since Grif is training her to relax, she's going to train him to fight.”
> 
> You guys really wanted this friendship, huh.
> 
> But here it is, after many days worrying if I’d get it done in time.
> 
> So… I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the prompts!
> 
> As always: English isn’t my native language and you can find me on tumblr as riathedreamer.


End file.
